


Snake Eyes and the Lion Heart

by weerus_n_turnip



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, DRAMAtical Murder re:code, DRAMAtical Murder re:connect, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Drugs, Dubious Consent, Gay Sex, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, M/M, Masochism, Morphine (DRAMAtical Murder), Non-Consensual Drug Use, PWP, Paranoia, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sadism, Squick, The plot may thicken, Triggers, Trip and Virus Are Assholes, Trip is kinda scary, Trip/Virus - Freeform, Virus and Trip's Route, Virus is a lil bit of an alcoholic, Vitri - Freeform, Wow, dmmd - Freeform, idk - Freeform, much gay, pwp tbh, rapey, trigger warning, trivi, virus x trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weerus_n_turnip/pseuds/weerus_n_turnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trip is a lot like fog: not in an artistic or poetic way, but because he simply exists in Virus's life. </p>
<p>Childish curiosity thrust Trip into the depths of darkness, not because he trusted that someone would be there to catch him in their arms, but rather a lack of care whether the pit he fell into would be deep enough to be fatal. It turns out that no, it was not fatal. It was not safe, either.</p>
<p>So Virus is stuck in the haze with only his arms' length of sight to guide him through the motions. He scopes with baited breath and tugs tight on the short leash he has on Trip, fearing that the tighter he yanks the more it will fray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Venom

**Author's Note:**

> basically my head canon is that Virus has always been good at reading people and finding their motives, but the way that he talks about Trip in the game is so elusive and almost like the only reason he lets Trip stay near him is because he's thirsty for answers.
> 
> I started writing this and I was so scared because does anyone actually understand the trash twins????? so I had no idea where to start but I just kept going and they made more and more sense to me... I feel like they don't even know themselves and that freaks me the fuck out 
> 
> yeah but anyway I'm mew here and this isn't my first fic but it IS my first one I'm uploading so yaaaay 
> 
> enjoy the trash babies

Trip is like elusive fog to Virus. Fog wafts in the early morning chill, acclimating to the temperature of surrounding air. It only adds to a landscape by masking the hills in clouds of deceptive purity. Fog is a perfect subterfuge. Everything looks perfect from far away, but once you're in a haze of fog, direction has no meaning anymore and the only world you exist in stops at the tips of your fingers. Trip is a lot like fog: not in an artistic or poetic way, but because he simply exists in Virus's life.

Childish curiosity thrust Trip into the depths of darkness, not because he trusted that someone would be there to catch him in their arms, but rather a lack of care whether the pit he fell into would be deep enough to be fatal. It turns out that no, it was not fatal. It was not safe, either.

Trip is like fog because he simply floats around, shrouding Virus in a sense of caution to keep his glasses clean so he doesn't miss a thing; squinting as far as he can through that curtain of vapour. Trip is like fog because Virus knows so little about him and the only way to accumulate knowledge to even understand the skin Trip sheds, Virus must first plunge into the abyss. He knows that there will be no soft pillows at the bottom of the pit or a set of arms to tumble into right before impact.

A natural acumen is something Trip doesn't have, whereas Virus has the thought process to sit back and assess the situation, to predict the outcomes and consequences. He can't do what Trip had done and fall head-first, arms spread with no care if he was going to make it out alive or survive the crash. Unlike his counterpart, Virus has the mindfulness to keep his breath steady when swimming through the mist, because it looks harmless, but for all he knows the oxygen he inhales may not be oxygen at all, rather a lethal mix of chemicals that was there from the very beginning yet he was too blind to see.

So Virus is stuck in the haze with only his arms' length of sight to guide him through the motions. He scopes with baited breath and tugs tight on the short leash he has on Trip, fearing that the tighter he yanks the more it will fray.

 

* * *

 

 

"Ya-ho Virus," the oaf calls with a mandatory rap on his office door. It's there for the sake of social etiquette. The visitor doesn't even wait for an invitation, instead barging in with no regards for privacy.

Virus's arctic blue scrutiny lands on the mammoth in patterns matching his own. It stays there for as long as he can keep his eyes open before they water. He shares a staring contest with the bottle-blond, both too stubborn to turn away, to be somehow robbed of their manhood from this simple unspoken game. It's Virus that resumes his earlier task first, making sure his face is cold as he swivels around in his chair, hoping that Trip recognises that he's a lower priority than work, which would keep Virus in the driver's seat of their duo.  
Something so trivial as turning his back to his partner gives him a strange power rush mixed with a creeping caution: power because Trip doesn't lash out or pull a blade to his neck whilst Virus lets his guard slip ever so slightly, and precaution because those empty eyes bore into the base of his skull like Trip could be discussing with the voices he probably has in his head ― none of which would be a conscience ― on how to murder Virus in his sleep.

His energy is depleted from his tight schedule; Trip's interruption is only serving to further frazzle his delicate nerves. Trip opens his mouth just to comment on his dishevelled appearance today and all Virus can think is how deep the urge is to stomp that bastard's skull into the ground, the only problem would be the blood that would stain his pristine white shoe.

"Please, come back when you've figured out how to filter the utter idiocy that comes out of your mouth." is the venomous sentence he spews. It's kinder than what he wanted to say: _'the reason why no one wants to look at you is because you're a sociopathic monster with no morals or capacity to understand basic human decency, and the difference between you and me is that I know how to act like I'm not the same as you'_. He somehow communicates this poison through his razor-blade glare and from across the room that blank mask doesn't even crack. His own eyes stare right back at him ― or maybe _through_ is a more accurate term. Those clinical blue voids are detached from any emotion, and he's sure that his own can't be that alien, despite what some think.

Suddenly, those pits of emptiness crawl closer and closer to him and his stomach makes its way up his oesophagus. This is the end. Trip has finally been fed up with acting like a loyal dog to an ungrateful master and his slow, calculated steps are going to be the last sound Virus hears, either that or the squelch his eyes will make when that Neanderthal shoves its thick fingers into his eye sockets and gouges his brain out.

A soft clatter breaks him from the horror movie inside his head and turns his attention to the small packet his probable murderer so gracelessly chucked onto the tinted glass desk top. The packaging tells him they’re cough drops and his eyebrows singe together as he tries to work this equation out logically.

"Your coughing kept me up all fucking night." Trip explains, and Virus can taste the bitter hatred in those words. Trip wasn't the only one to lay restless because of the racket. “You sounded pretty shit. Take the day off."  
All Virus can do is deny all charges with a stern shake of his head. "I'm perfectly fine. I dare say it but I’m lead to believe that your nose is a little too far in my business, even for you." Trip leaves then, but not before his psychopathic unblinking gaze gives Virus one last silent warning.

 

* * *

 

Virus returns home in tow with his lookalike late that afternoon. The medicine is discarded on his nightstand when he sheds his clothes before disappearing into the clutches of boiling hot water that rain down on his skin to cleanse him of the day's filth. The medicine’s existence doesn’t even pull at his mind until late into the night and wee hours of the morning as he struggles to breathe between barking coughs. His lungs strain with force to break his ribs; inching up his throat each time he gags hard enough to taste bile. The sheets pool around his shaking form as he sits up.

At this point he's willing to do anything to inhale without fighting against his own lungs to do so. One hand slams onto the cold glass of his bedside, blindly feeling for the small packet. The tips of his fingers brush past his glasses and he slips them on so that this time he can see what he's groping for. Grabbing the medicine, the crinkle of foil is barely audible through his wet coughing. The taste of the round, slick ball is sour, but the attempted sweetness of artificial honey is the true culprit of his cringing.

Luckily, the medicine calms his aching lungs to a degree. Now all that bothers him is the swarm of bees he feels he's swallowed because how else could his throat be so stripped of skin? Just as he goes to groan, knowing he has to trudge down to the kitchen, the stairs beat him to it in that familiar protest of Trip's massive form. The rest of the footsteps stop; Virus wonders why the sound is so close. The door ― _his_ door ― is wrenched open and Virus won't ever utter how far he jumped in that moment.

  
That same image of his death flashes behind his pupils and he clenches his jaw in a false show of composure. He expects Trip to come bearing a knife he plans to bury in the slender throat of his companion. Maybe even a small hand-held pistol hidden in his socks would do the job for that monster.

Virus imagined there would be a light to shade the man's form whilst lining his silhouette in silver, the demon with wings of an angel. That would be the last image to grace his retinas as the knife was brought down in one fell swoop. But there's no light and there's no lethal weapon that Virus can see: Trip's skull-crushing hands are wrapped around a ceramic mug in a languid gentility Virus has never witnessed before. Those hands have strangled their enemies with enough force to send a red trickle out their nose. Those hands have clasped around arms and snapped them with a flick of his wrists. Virus has never so much as imagined those hands could possibly cradle anything with so much care, so much poise.

Even in the opaque night air he can see the smooth skin of Trip's face, flawless from discarded emotions that never make their way to his features. He looks like an oversized doll with his stripped and styled hair, stone cold expression and synthetic orbs. They're either glassy and vague or sharp and electric. There's no in between for this mammoth doll. Tonight they're dulled in a gossamer film of sleep with an azure ethereal glow in the darkness: they're bright but uninvitingly so. They have the brightness of a glinting sword. _Dangerous_ is a word that comes to mind.

People say that blue eyes are very pretty, but Virus is sure they must be referring to irises like the colour of a river stream or a cloudless summer sky, sapphires, ocean cerulean. These eyes are like lightning: piercing and flashing in perilous jolts ― high voltage lethality and unpredictable. Sure the faux-blonde’s eyes are bright, but they're bright like car headlights in strong weather, glowing through fog as tyres screech underneath them; they shine like a computer screen in a dark room. Shining but not shimmering, luminous but emotionless.

It makes sense since both of their eyes are equally synthetic. Both were made in a lab before being planted in their sockets because apparently this alteration was necessary. The difference between the similar duo is that Virus's lashes rest on his cheeks each time he smiles to soften his face from those menacing irises unfortunately the same as Trip's, even if his smile is tilting towards the false side. Trip keeps his vision dead as he lets his lips bare teeth in what he probably thinks is a grin but comes off as a snarling warning like a beast defending its territory.

Virus comes back to the present and swallows a scream as his eyes lock with the recluse who lacks the artless ability to blink. Trip is barely a foot away.

Tilted towards Virus is the ceramic cup he can now see is brimming with steaming liquid.

  
Trip has a deep voice like a foreign language that could create words out of grunts. With it, Trip commands "here," as he points the drink in Virus's general direction.

Big foot sitting on the edge of his bed offering him poison in a mug: this has to be a joke. Virus drags his sleep dulled stare from Trip to the cup, and then back to the former who meets his tired gaze with his very own deadpan weariness. It's so ridiculously ironic that Virus snorts a hollow chuckle and decides to indulge his comrade by taking the offering. He poises the rim on his bottom lip and inhales the aromatic steam with clogged senses. The only thing he discerns is the mild bitterness of tea, though specific flavours are lost. It's sweet and sour at the same time with a floral equaliser. His raised eyebrow silently questions the younger man. Picking up on it, Trip sighs and leans on his arm. "Elderflower and lemon chamomile tea: half a sugar."

It's warm in Virus's svelte hands. For a long while he just stares at it in contemplation, cautious that his partner has somehow spiked it. He doesn't want to admit it but it has come to his attention that he's wearing thin, enough to become vulnerable. To be drugged at a time like this is cowardly of Trip: trying to kill the blond when he's weak.

An exasperated sigh fills the pregnant silence and before he can blink the cup is roughly snagged from his hands. The culprit carelessly slurps a mouthful with a cringe. Virus has come to learn that tea is not one of Trip’s favourites because of its bitter tang. When they visit coffee shops, Trip would order sweet pastries and a hot chocolate rather than coffee or tea. The lug has a sweet tooth that elderflower and lemon tea isn't enough to sate.

Trip returns the mixture with a weary sigh. "You trust me too little." His expecting stare is fixed on Virus. So he drinks the tea.  
It's with a great hesitance that he closes his lips around the rim and pours enough to drown his tongue in delicately spiced water. It's warm but not scalding, the raw skin of his throat bathed in a soothing heat. The taste is much stronger than the smell, although Virus realises it's his own senses that cause that inconsistency. With a disgusted choke he tries to inhale through his nose and fails in a clogged sniffle.

Trip's weight lifts off the bed and it quickly finds its equilibrium again. He doesn't bother to shut the door and Virus scowls until the slap of bare feet make a return and this time when Trip emerges through the door, he holds a box of tissues in one hand and a jar in the other.

  
Virus strains his muscles with the force of which he tenses. He hides his face in a masterfully deceiving sip of tea that doesn't calm his stomach _or_ his nerves. Tissue box discarded next to him, Trip finally blinks, but it's slow and inpatient and unamused. He's closer this time. He's so close that the bed dips under him and Virus is sliding even _closer_ , like being lead towards a wood chipper on a conveyor belt, where he is to meet the diamond blade of Trips glare and be shredded like nothing more than paper. The only sound to grace the empty air is the clink of Virus's herbal remedy being placed aside so he can focus on more important matters.

Trip's body is an anchor when Virus tumbles right into it. He can't remember at what point, but somehow, the little redhead had underwent a final growth spurt and surpassed him in height and physique. It was probably around the time he bleached those locks of fire to lifeless strips of straw that matched Virus's own hair. Styled similarly and dressed to look like his reflection, Trip has loitered around him for as long as Virus can recall. They slot into place as the brains and the brawns: a complimentary pair and nothing more. Brains run the show and brawns acts as rodeo behind the scenes, cleaning their messes and organising shady deals in equally shady locations.

  
The chest his hands are pushing against is a broad immovable wall. One would think that strong arms and a tank body would bring comfort and safety to be held in. Trip's strength is not a warm welcome as much as it is a chilling warning. To be this close to him is like being stuffed in a box too small. His muscle is akin to brightness of his eyes: all wrong.

Instead of a protective shield, Trip is a parlous weapon. Muscles for amour and clamp-like hands: a mane of straw encasing luminous orbs. Trip is a lion just as Virus is an unctuous snake.

There's no need for a lion to kill a snake, but the threat is there nonetheless. Snakes are tyrants of the undergrowth whereas lions are kings; rulers of land, the true alphas control with brute force ― snakes control with a healthy dose of fear and intelligence. They're complimentary in a way that is not like the small bird on the back of a hippo; a give and take relationship. The bird gets a free meal and in turn the hippo is clean, so it lets the bird stay. Trip may like to pretend he's just a bird with no ulterior motives but it just isn't so. Though Virus doesn't know what that underlining meaning of Trip's company is, there's _bound_ to be one. A reason to watch his back in case he finds a knife in it, an explanation on why the bottle-blond keeps coming back ―or rather hadn't left in the first place. Maybe he's dug himself too deep into this abyss; maybe he's masochistic and enjoys being a subservient door mat. No, it's nothing as tedious or trivial. Trip is too complex to be summed up by a few words, his motives too capricious.

The snake and the lion are counterparts that fit like forced jigsaw puzzle pieces ― opposing forces that balance so delicately that one wrong move can shift the tenuous equilibrium. Their relationship is one that requires the snake to constantly look over its shoulder to make sure the lion is still sleeping, and the lion must constantly watch the snake in case its fangs start dripping. The balance is the judiciousness of the snake that slithers too quickly for the lion to stomp claws into it. Though smaller and less powerful, it’s a true assassin with stealth, quick reflexes and deadly poison. Strength tactics are useless on the snake and that's just about all the lion has. So that's the way it is and the way it remains; the lion can leave but it chooses stay and keep using its advantage whilst the snake decides it's safer with the intimidating carnivore tamed enough to stand by.

It happens not as a blur but like a bystander's slow realisation of a car crash happening right in front of them. Not too fast or time seeming to stop, instead it only occurs to Virus what had transpired when it's already over. Hindsight is cruel.

His chest peeks through his shirt and a sour sting flavours the air. The jar is opened in one of Trip's hands, the other creeping towards the gentle slope of his ribs.

"What do you think you're doing?" Virus demands in the most authoritative tone he can muster. His bones are filled with ice but his flesh is cooking in its own juices. Hyperventilating from such close proximity, his defences are weak enough to crumble with the knowing hum Trip sighs. "Flu," He absentmindedly clips; never one to tergiversate. Fingers inching closer, breathing calculated puffs of heat, Trip's body a furnace as Virus squirms away from the probing touch. An acrid smell finally tickles his nose that grows more pungent the closer the hand gets. Cold lotion chills the juncture of his chest and it can't really be called that since it's freezing at such a negative degree that it burns like fire. His body heaves and sputters in retaliation to the icy gel and he gasps before his brain can filter it.

"Get your hands _off_ of me." Facsimile irises collide in lightning glares, one pair as vivid as a corpse and the other steely and domineering. If Trip understands the threat behind mirrored orbs, he doesn't outwardly convey his comprehension of the purple aura Virus emanates. Thick waves of loathing roll around the room and he's sure that the tension is visible. By now there's a suffocating viscosity to the air like drowning in sour honey.

Surprisingly, Trip obliges the earlier demand and the honey hardens into hot tar that has Virus sweating despite his goose bumps. The jar suddenly weighs awkwardly in his asthenic grip. Bespectacled eyes silently ask the meaning of this gesture, but the compressed container reveals nothing through speech or otherwise. He's forced to drag his puzzlement upon his dubious doppelganger and stare into those eyes and listen to the phantom flat-line they seem to emit.

"Fine," Trip relents, a careful tone that isn't quite condescending but certainly on its way there "do it yourself."  
So Virus takes a blob of the gloop and lathers it on his chest with the heel of his palm. It burns like dry ice but it's hot and smells too strongly of mint. The odour becomes more prominent and pungent before he takes a deep breath through his nose whilst counting each twitch of his eye. A few more deep inhales and he pauses ― he can breathe. Pressure gone from behind his eyes, eucalyptus assaulting his senses, it's a whole new world at his disposal.

It's all so perfect until his body tries to give birth to his lungs through his oesophagus: contractions and all. Muscles convulsing, he hacks up a sticky mouthful of something without taste, but the texture is the part that forces a repulsed gag to wrack his stomach.  
A hand that isn't his own graces his back. Just like with the cup: the touch is feathery and without that trace of murderous intent that he's come to relate with Trip's actions. It's a brave move, but Trip isn't brave and the touch isn't because he's bold: he's reckless ― without fear because he's incapable of feeling it.

He has the intrepid stupidity of playing with razors and not learning when he's cut. He doesn't care about the consequences, doesn't even have the Hindsight or conscience to tell him what he's doing is dangerous or wrong. It's plain stupidity, the type that he doesn't know when enough is enough. He'll push and push until breaking point, but instead of backing away he lets the storm teeter haphazardly until it all topples onto him. When the chaos ensues though, he won't bat an eyelash, he'll let that grin crawl onto his face and revel in the mess he's made.

So it's understandable that Virus squirms away from the touch. It's understandable that he cringes to deter his thoughts from his tense muscles, and it's understandable that his voice is a low hiss when he lashes his disgust through clenched teeth, "I won't ask you again."  
Trip seems to interpret this. His claws dwell on the small of Virus's back. Now there's a weight of immovable force, keeping Virus on high alert, grounding him with the impact of not a paperweight but a freight train. The touch is barely brushing the fabric of his shirt but it's heavier than if Trip were sprawled atop his body.

Just as Virus's frustration snowballs into rage and he readies a poisonous retort rolling over his tongue, the weight vanishes.  
His jagged sapphires become lost under their own shelter of smooth skin and long, blond lashes that dip into his vision before curling upwards. With them, he locks their identical orbs in a scalding hot glare that he tries to telepathically communicate his years of loathing. He knows Trip understands the seething gaze; but Trip just stares back with his dead grin of victory that sits uncomfortably upon that too strong jawline.

It irks Virus to take in Trip's features. It's like looking at a distorted mirror that doesn't make his body become an impossible curve, but changes his clothes so they match, yet not so they're identical. It changes his face so that it's longer and rough-cut, unlike his own sleek, oval face ― changes his hair so that it's a brittle blond and styled in the opposite direction: combed back and flicking upwards, not outwards. Trip's eyebrows are too slim for his brutish forehead, decorating the thin bridge of his nose isn't a pair of thick rimmed glasses but a crease between his brows. His nose doesn't slope before curving into a perfect perk, instead straight and sharp, no softening curves: all rough edges he doesn't bother to sand down, leaving them overt to splinter. Those splinters are pricking underneath Virus's skin just as they were designed to.

They match; they're complimentary, but they’re not _identical_. Their eyes though, those **are** identical. Arctic blue clones with synthetic shine. Trip has them cloaked beneath coal lashes that reach towards the sky. They shade the edges of his whites in grey, adding to the ominous stare. Virus is luckier, with almost translucent blond that darkens at the roots. Most of the time his eyes don't really matter when they’re hidden behind the flash of his lenses.

He vaguely contemplates if he retains that same maniacal glint in his eyes. He wonders if it's hidden behind his glasses or if maybe that attribute is a limited edition, or just Trip's personal touch.

When Trip blinks, it's as if his whole brain concentrates his energy to do so. It's not natural, the way he stares for seemingly hours before remembering that normal people have to blink. He doesn't blink when he speaks, doesn't so much as breathe. He becomes a statue with frozen eyes until they lock and let the lids drop slowly before being dragged upwards to continue his dead gaze… _definitely_ not normal or pleasant.

"Turn around for me." Trip's deep voice instructs. It’s a harsh grate with a flimsy cover of softness. "… _Please_." he adds as an afterthought. It's far from sincere and Virus sure that tone is so saccharine because it's Trip's messy attempt at an impersonation. He's a lion trying to meow like a kitten, and that roar is always just beneath the surface, incidentally thickening Trip's voice into a harsh rumble. His voice is baritone, crass and rusty, like the revving engine of a diesel truck older than the both of them combined.

Virus is so close to protesting in a condescending smile, until he's startled into shock by the daft fingers tickling his shoulders. It only occurs to him what Trip's intention is when the thin fabric of his shirt slides down his back and pools around his elbows. The gel is so cold against his sizzling back, the juxtaposition so soothing that he sighs against his will as he melts into the touch. It stings on his skin but in a reassuring burn like strong mint. Like the alcohol rub on open wounds it burns, yet it's enjoyable because it's icy hot and refreshing.

There's a particular pair of words Trip calls him that is undeniably accurate: control freak. Virus is a meticulous perfectionist with a passion for routine. It's almost a disorder. This has definitely never been part of the routine nor will it ever be. He's never been sick like this, never had to deal with phlegm and aches or a clogged and foggy mind.

Growing up as a science experiment, whatever problem there was in his body would immediately be eradicated before the symptoms even became apparent. His body was not his own half of the time with the amount of medications they crammed into him. So no, he's not used to this, and he's not used to anyone invading his personal space like this. Again, in the clinic their hands were shielded in a thin latex layer. Examination is just a fancy word for poking and probing. Jabbing at ribs and asking ridiculous questions like _'does this hurt?'_ before bashing a hammer into his kneecap.

This kind of light, raw skin on skin contact is almost unheard of for Virus. What's more disturbing is that he's torn between morbid curiosity and blatant disgust. It seems like an easy decision to elbow his captor in the neck and hiss a threat through his fangs, but he's also contemplating how damaging the consequences of letting this spiral further could be. For safety reasons, he wounds his extending arms around the broad expanse above him and digs his nails in enough to get his point across. He doesn't drag them or draw blood, but he makes sure there's crescent dents decorating the smooth landscape of jagged blades upon silky plains.

He doesn't arch into Trip so much as he arches away from the bed. He doesn't allow himself to melt or press into the wall of chest above him, only gives those deadly hands enough room to manoeuvre. Ice trails in unceremonious patterns, sliding palms and for the first time in knowing Trip, the first time from the small twelve year old he was when he met with the kid 6 years his junior; Virus breaks. Not in the way that he's accustomed to, he is always mentally prepared to sigh and step out of the room for a minute to gather his bearings after Trip's idiocy, he's used to cracking like glass heated too high when the brawn eyes him off with defiance. Virus is used to breaking. Trip tests his patients far too often. What Virus isn't familiar with however, is giving in. Letting go usually means vulnerability and that's for the weak and lovesick.

Virus would stop sleeping if he could survive on adrenalin pills for the rest of his life. But he can't, and so the most vulnerable to be seen is with his glasses a few inches away on his bedside whilst his head rests on a pillow. Some nights he feels as if his head is on the block of a guillotine and other nights it's all a swelling hurricane of ice blue and autumn red like dried blood on silky strands of a spider's web.  
Unfortunately, fine wine has become Virus's best friend before bedtime. He'll feel the tightness coil his muscles and who is he to deny himself rare wines? So one glass turns into two and two into four, because not only is the taste exotic but it makes him feel light enough to close his eyes long enough to drift into a slumber, however choppy.

Tonight he hasn’t indulged in even a sip and his body knows all too well of the sobriety. He ponders that maybe if there was a trace of alcohol in his system he’d pamper himself and become one with the pillows beneath him. The hot breath on his neck would be the only thing he remembered before he woke up to a neck of red rivers and valleys. The pulsing palm lathering his back is tolerable but the alcohol could make it paradise. It’s all a blurry collage of ‘what if’s and unfavourable situations he finds more and more appealing with the added bonus of alcohol on his mind.

Alas, he’s sober and synonymously regretful.


	2. H1N1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow I was gone a while sorry bout that but here have a lil smutty goodness it's not as long as I wanted it to be but hey its an update

Tangled on Virus’s bed like they are, the picture is almost romantic. They’re almost a cute couple embracing beneath the shades of moonlight; it’s almost an innocuous touch winding his body tighter. Whether it’s out of fear or a toxic amount of inexplicable arousal, he ignores the omnipotent urge to venture further into his desires. He’ll leave it unexplained instead of shamefully aware, and in turn be blissfully ignorant rather than woefully humiliated.

 

His body is always racing with a buzz, occasionally it’s barely there and he can turn the other way, but for the other half of his waking moments it’s a revving chainsaw that gnaws its way up his spine and plants itself into the most active areas of his brain. He dwells upon unexplainable compulsions from sources unknown, from ideas forgotten long ago.

Currently, the two extremes have mingled into the one ubiquitous emotion. He’s split down the centre, torn between soft purrs of contentment and inextinguishable lust. Adding to the poisonous potion is the thirst for blood. His attempt at sating it is dragging his nails down the large bicep caging him.

 

The reply comes as a pleasant shock.

Puffs of warm breath prickle his neck; he grants further access by craning his head away to boast the expanse of his collarbone and shoulders. Teeth latch on to the supple skin there, ski over the most prominent vein and fangs bury deep within it.

Virus sucks in a gulp of air just as Trip sucks in a mouthful of flesh.

His jaw almost unhinges when a hand slides down the back of his pyjama clad thigh. It scopes around in a ritual of up and down, attempting to soothe his fears by running a palm over the back of his pants. It halts all of a sudden, and Virus vibrates with the agony of holding himself together after this sick joke. His worries are proven pointless though as his leg is coaxed to fold inwards, accommodating hips between his own. They bend at the knee, not to cradle Trip, but to cage him, much like the arm adjacent to his head.

Virus's nails are still sinking further into hard muscle, occasionally slipping enough to scrape down and trail red stripes repeatedly.

One last jolt of pain twinges beneath his neck before the teeth leave completely. His first reaction is to ready the rest of his body for serrated canines to mark him, but a face blocks the view of his room and he can do nothing to neutralize his face from the tightness of confusion.

They study each other in what little light there is. Virus refuses to take his gaze off anything but the laser point eyes that glow like an ultraviolet light, synthetically matching the moon's violet rays.

Lids droop in half mast over Trip's downturned eyes. His hooded fixation is neither tired or lustful, but dark and hungry. A starved beast who has found its newest feast: Trip gradually encroaches on Virus’s vision until it's a blurry mess of moonlit skin, where feel is his only reliance. His eyes are open for the sake of caution, though they prove little use as of now.

It seems natural to close his eyes, but then again that's never been used to describe him by himself or others. So keeping a sturdy glare from behind the thin glass of his spectacles, Virus allows a hard jaw to collide with his. His glasses slide down the bridge of his nose: immediately a tongue slides into his mouth and his legs clamp tight around the hulk between them. Trip shifts barely an inch and he can guess where this is going. It may have been years since they've dabbled in this, practiced and perfected the fine arts of 'love-making', but every atom that makes up Virus remembers all too well of how this plays out.  He'll twist his body, flutter his eyes a certain way, arch and curve, just the way he makes bedroom eyes can light this fire within Trip that uses all the oxygen in the room to ignite and burn for hours, which leaves them panting and gasping for whatever air is left behind. Trip claws at him like the animal he is, bites and growls the name he's whispered too many times to count from so many years ago.

Confident enough to let his eyes meld shut and hands wander freely; Virus becomes one with the beast above him, to form a creature with two backs. He presses himself against the full frame of Trip, feeling their comparison of height and width. He's stealing Trip's warmth, his breath, his freedom, all with just the stroke of a pointed tongue against eager lips.

Virus's hand fiddles around before settling onto that strong jaw. He clinches it between svelte fingers, determined to leave blossoms of indigo and crimson that Trip will see in every reflection, reminding him of who he belongs to. He might smirk as he runs his own blunt fingers over the markings, he might cringe and frown, he could even toy around with it, darkening its shade: Virus can't really be sure. Trip has always been too nebulous. What he can be certain of is the heated frenzy Trip's kisses boast. 'Kissing' isn't really the correct term for his open-mouthed, sloppy crushing of faces. There’s too much tongue on Trip’s behalf, too much teeth, lacking in any finesse. His forehead bumps Virus’s specs askew with silent growls beneath shallow breath.

With the grip he has on Trip’s jaw, Virus tilts the beast’s head so that the tendons in that thick neck will twist and knot. It only recesses Trip in his advances. A guttural growl barely laces the underside of his laboured gasps. Virus pulls away to revel in his effortless work, revealing those dead spheres to be starved and burning with the fuel of lust. They’re sharper and deadlier than ever, and Virus still tenses with each shift the man makes, but there’s also a maniacal whisper in the back of his mind, a power hungry dictator coaxing his hand to roam down the centre of Trip’s body. His eyes remain trained to the mirrored orbs above him, watching each trickle of sweat down Trip’s temples.

 

Pleasure for Virus isn’t orthodox, it can’t be found on one night stands or in a tight hand or warm mouth. Instead, the thrill of desire appears in scattered puzzle pieces of Trip, like the way he has to clench his teeth or fists to calm from lashing out, or even now as Virus toys with the hem of loose pyjama pants. Trip's muscles twitch beneath their fleshy cage; he's testing the limits of Trip's self-control. Power is his pleasure, and dangling his bate on the beast's lips, held back by a thin sliver of obedience ―that's where Virus finds his pleasure. Having power over another strong willed, inhumane psychopath, even in this one moment, concentrates blood into his thighs, his veins tingling with the friction of his screaming pulse.

He brings his body closer to Trip so they're connected at the torso. A steady grinding of hips is all it takes to topple the faux-blond, his convulsions causing him to collapse in on himself, his face mere centimetres away now that his arms have lost their fight, leaving the work for his elbows alone. Their whole beings are trapped and weaved a single breath apart. However, at this particular moment, Virus doesn't struggle to breathe because of fear or anticipating his impending death, but because it's stolen away from him in the flittering eyelashes struggling to stay open. His sweat isn't cold or adrenalin fuelled, but warm and scented of his signature cologne. Trip's breath smells like Halloween: a spicy mix of artificial sweetness from a plethora of assorted candies.

Virus fingers dip beneath constricting fabric to fondle with the hard flesh he comes into contact with. Instead of immediately gripping the length he slides lower to the wiry garden of red. He scrapes his nails gently and listens for the gasp that comes next.

His name is ground out in a hurricane of ashy groaning, disappearing into the depths of his neck as Trip bows his head into the crook of a slender shoulder. Pushing and pleading without words but vibrating brass moans, he tries so hard to rock into Virus.

Tense shoulders become his shelter if the roof were to break and the skies open up to a stormy night.

 

"So this is why you helped me tonight…" he accuses in a diminishing tone. Trip shakes his head, successfully bopping whatever it collides with. "No?"

He shakes his head again; it's like communicating with a young yeti. Virus sighs when his lips are chomped down upon, Trip's sugary tongue slipping inside his mouth. Devoured by the man towering above him, there's no escape. He can only improve his situation by weakening the beast, calming it and sating its animalistic impulses. Trembling excitedly, his hand works its way into the mop of blond. Virus nips the tip of an invading tongue and the blond pauses. Maybe he's taken it too far; he could soon see his insides on the outside of his body. Virus freezes just in case. Hoping that Trip really is like an animal, if Virus keeps himself still he might pass as dead.

But his body is still in demand and his lips are smothered once more.

 

His courage spikes with the knowledge that Trip's sex drive overrides his homicidal tendencies ― and whatever rational thinking the animal may or may not have.

Hooking securely around a broad waist are Virus's ivory legs. He lets his partner close the gap between their bodies with a desperate grunt and thrust.

In a surprising yet internally expected turn of events, the faux-blond is acquiescent to the roll of jutting hips, swaying his brain into a carnal euphoria, swivelling so that their positions switch and Virus now has a throne to perch himself upon. Straddling in a way that aligns their groins, his surroundings are cemented in his mind's eye, his exits are marked out if something goes terribly wrong and there are at least four improvised weapons he can grab for. So he slides his hips back just barely with that backup plan. His movement is jerky and graceless: so out of character to the point where Trip cracks his eyes open a fraction to visually interrogate him. Virus wouldn't blame him. Especially when his goal is reached and one last jolt and a clipped shout empties into the room.

He's a dead weight on Trip's dick, crushing it between his own bony ass and a stiff thigh. A macabre smile weaves the muscles of his face tight in opposing directions. It only aches more when he drags his pelvis repeatedly over the lump of hard flesh. Trip's facial muscles constrict and contort; they share a sadistic grin, first figuratively and then literally as Virus drags his teeth along Trip's thin lips and sinks them deeper.

Just visualizing the mouth he's chewing mutates his teasing nibbles into sharp stuns. If he weren't focused on his lips, his jaw would follow through rote and grind his molars hard enough to slice open Trip's face.

The curve of his thin lips is defined and prominent: a slight dip paired with low hanging arched eyebrows always forces Virus to stare longer than necessary, deciphering whether his comrade is just a sufferer of Bitchy-Resting-Face or if the blond is genuinely angered, marring his otherwise blank face with a frown. Trip is living proof that a mouth doesn't have to be full and voluptuous to be pouty. It wouldn't be so terrible if there was some cushioning however, because Trip's technique certainly doesn't compensate for his lack of shape or padding.

His hand traces over each curve and dip of Trip’s body, accentuated muscles smooth hills beneath thin cloth. The brute has so little focus that the distraction of Virus’s tongue is the only focal point, and a guttural exhale chokes him. Cold fingers slip under the elastic of pyjama pants. They become lost in wiry curls of auburn. When they reach the ultimate destination, Virus makes sure to wrap the coils around and tug as if they were unintentionally caught. They both share a wicked smirk between their lips, knowing otherwise. 

Virus wraps his fingers around the heated organ, flexes them once before he yanks his arm in. His palm skids over it in a dry abrasion from the lack of sufficient lubricant. Stuttered and broken and fail to get much of a rise out of Trip. 

The elastic of his pants is snapped below his waist and his dick sways in open air: Virus cringes at the visible pulse. The room soon fogs with a musty whiff of sweat and stale cologne. 

Slow tugs on searing flesh bring translucent pebbles to dab around the crown, eventually trickling down and to Virus's dismay, coating his hand. The friction, now aided with moisture, rouses growling moans and clinched fists from the monster. 

Virus earns his own erection from a mixture of lazy grinding and listening to sharp intakes of air when he combs his fingernails up the underside of Trip's thick cock. His nails trace each dent and vein protruding from the full mass. There's wrinkles and throbbing veins Virus pays close mind to, tracing over them and shivering in the barely audible whines that follow his actions. 

Trip cranes upwards in a hopeless mewl, silently begging for the air in Virus's lungs. He breathes life into him with the sealing of their lips. Each movement he makes, his counterpart mimics: he'll twist his head for better access and Trip will ravenously follow without leaving for even a breath. Experimentally, Virus takes his whole person away from the mess beneath him and just as he imagined, a face slams back into his with a stripped growl. It's deep like a warning, but it ends in a keening pitch, as a small apology for his outburst. Trip is a thread of frustrated tension, wrapped so tightly around Virus's pinky finger that if wound tighter he would snap.

But that is exactly his plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how was it ??? 
> 
> Want more ???? smutty enough,????? feed me with kudos and comments I love you guys ~❣❣


	3. Vicious Cycles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shiT GUYS iM hella sorry about my long ass absence ive been in and out of hospital and then catching up on shitty shit munching work (im still in fuckloads of bullshit) so ye im a lazy and sick bag of frozen cum drops BUT HAVE THIS SHORT ASS GAY FUN TIEM wOOOOO

It’s been thrown around that someone in Virus’s situation is supposed to feel a sense of awkwardness and shame, often referred to as ‘The Morning After’. Instead, he contemplates the apparent normativity of this emotion in majority of humans whilst also mulling over his morning routine. By this time ― 6:14 ― the hot steam of the shower would be scalding his body in ugly red blotches. Then a wide tooth comb would rake through his wet hair before more scalding took place in the form of hot air from a hairdryer. An hour of dedication on his appearance would take him until 7:00, when he would sort through files and then ready breakfast.

He’s doing none of those things. Virus is glued to his bed-sheets stained with an odour far too musky to belong to him. It can’t be categorised as a fragrance because that would suggest it’s pleasant; and it can’t be called a smell because that is too general a term. It’s an odour with a thick lacing of something he can’t quite describe besides ‘Trip’. Salty and thickly laced with husky spice, it’s a scent that Virus cringes at, yet buries his face deeper within.

He’s repulsed by the thought and intrigued by the obscenity.

It’s a scent that belongs to an animal in heat, meant to draw mates by pheromones and testosterone in maps to their den.

Virus sucks in another hopeless breath of that scent and sighs in defeat. He flops over as lifeless as a rag-doll and for the first time he can remember, he allows his heavy eyelids to fall. His stiff joints sink deep into those Trip-scented pillows and he thinks for a moment that if there _were_ really a God, they would be kind enough to grant him eternal rest and he wouldn’t have to face the demon that would be today.

Everyone must face their demons at some point ― he knows this well, yet he can’t help wishing it wasn’t true.

 

Racing across his vision is the flickering stills of the previous night. If his face heated and nausea took place of his hollow stomach, he would be less concerned. Yet as of now the tell-tale signs of disgust that comes with the thought of Trip are nowhere in his system. The only countable ones are frustration pressing his teeth into the delicate flesh lining the inside of his mouth and the cramps forming in his chest. Maybe this is shame, but then again his body isn't heated as per usual. He then discovers that he has nothing to compare embarrassment to other than experiences not of his own. He's sure Trip would have the same problem identifying symptoms of emotions and what they're supposed to mean. If he didn't know Virus as well as he did he'd probably come to him with questions like every other subject he ponders about.

When he finds the strength to drag his uncooperative body to the shower, he starts his routine half an hour later than the set time. Better late than never he supposes. Water pelts down on him and he becomes more and more frantic when the ghostly slime of disgust coating his body refuses to be budged by the lathering of fragranced soap. It's a blanket of Trip's scent, heat, spit, sweat and cum… and it's all stuck to Virus. It's dripping in every crevice and pore of his body. Trip's taste lingers on his tongue, in his throat, inside his body.

He rubs desperately at his skin, cutting the cold off completely and cooking himself in a stream of liquid fire. His skin blotches red from the heat and stripes from his scrubbing. Marks of possession appear on his skin: bruises on his thighs of fingerprints, his collarbone shredded by canines, bleeding vivid colours under a thin layer of skin. It all spells out ' _Trip_ '. He feels less and less like a person and more of a possession.

The shower positively scalds him to pieces. Steam thickens until he's drowning in viscous fog, until there's so little oxygen left in the air that he can no longer feel the fire scorching his feet, and then hands, and then his legs buckle beneath him as a crash dully sounds. The mist on the ground is even thicker and denser and he's gulping for life as the burning rain sticks into him like needles.

Flavoured with his filth ― most of which belongs to Trip, the steam fills his lungs and drowns him slowly. As his eyes droop, he laughs coldly at the moist fog engulfing him. Trip just won't leave him alone. He's everywhere. He's effectively become the air that Virus breathes.

His lashes sweep down to his cheeks and prove too heavy to lift back up. A faint thud is the last thing he feels, and his last thought is that maybe there _is_ a God, and this is his eternal rest.

 

* * *

 

Time bleeds into itself within his darkness. At first it was like simmering in a soup, his flesh becoming tender. His muscles were so loose he could be pulled apart with a fork. Gradually his limbs regained feeling and the previous cloud of heat bled from his veins. For a long while it was lukewarm, uncomfortable yet as an oxymoron, comforting. Now it's finally faded completely, leaving his senses dulled by frostbite. All of which he can't decipher a time frame for. Seconds, hours, days, months, they're all abstract concepts within this blur of eternal nothingness. He can't covert emotions and senses into time. Even now he can't know for sure how long his name had been echoing around the empty air. There's no point at which he can remember his body being cocooned in this consistent warmth. Again, 'Virus' coos in the distance, yet it's as close as a hot whisper in his ear. A weak mumble is his response, he's not even sure if it made it outside his throat.

A deep grunt disguised under soothing waves of carefully weaved words flows through the swashing liquid in Virus’s ears. He flickers his sunken eyes open, untamed shower hair splayed over half of his vision. When the world fills his blurred perception, it’s even more so than usual. It’s not just out of focus, it’s swirled and distorted and there’s colours he can’t name ― colours that are nowhere on the spectrum. He calls out the only name he knows, “Trip…” and as always, a low rumble makes his chest vibrate when the man calls his name.

“…Virus.” It’s wrapped in a soft, delicate smile that definitely couldn’t appear on Trip’s spectrum of emotions, so Virus comes to the conclusion that he’s hallucinating. He lets a soft laugh escape him since none of this is real. Though his vision is metres underwater, he can feel the way Trip cocks his head like a dumb, slobbering dog. Breathless giggling morphs into a hyena’s cackle, escalating every time Trip’s confused stare pops into his watery mind. It’s a quick way to consume what little energy and air he has. If he thought he was lightheaded before, this is a whole new level of experience. Out of all the drugs he’s dabbled in this is nowhere near the best experience. However, it’s definitely on the list. A mix of fine wine and morphine is his only reference.

Now the sense of his body has returned every part of him tingles. Not in a pleasant way either. More like resting on the hood of a moving truck. His mind tries blanketing the feeling and it works to a certain degree, but somehow his body just doesn’t enjoy it as much as his brain would like him to. It’s not just in his limbs; it’s beneath his fingernails, the tips of his hair, his teeth. Even his eyeballs aren’t stable.

He desperately claws to Trip, whining and chuckling as a calloused palm runs up and down his spine. It calms him for as long as it lasts. The surface they occupy rises a foot with a rustle of fabric, leading Virus to inference that Trip had been kind enough to bring him to a bed. Trip-scented sweat swamps the room which implicates this is his counterpart’s room. That hypothesis seems reasonable until his memories cohesively flow, namely those of the previous night. Trip marking his territory with his stench of bodily fluids, his candied mouth sucked on Virus’s tongue hard enough to give him cavities. Virus had teased Trip by rolling his hips, craning his neck to boast his unmarred glory as he moaned through a wicked smirk. There was only so long until the restraining ropes of self-control snapped. Trip’s growl pronounced his lunge towards the man atop him, flipping their positions to ravage him. The rest is a messy blur of seamless thrusts from the monster that had utter control over Virus’s lanky body, limp with pleasure.

As of now recent memories aids the rise of his body’s temperature. The bed slants upon Trip’s return to the room, Virus tries to huddle closer but he’s beaten to it. Somehow he still feels a numb chill in the tips of his extremities and his instinct is to huddle himself into the nearest warm object. Wrapped in a thick duvet, locked inside meaty biceps and yet his skin is still bitten by an arctic freeze.

The palm of textured sandpaper creeps up to his mussed cloud of golden hair and painfully wounds the strands around thick fingers until Virus can hear the small ‘ping’ as they snap. He almost forgets that Trip has two hands ― and one of them happens to be free ― until it juxtaposes the agonising grip behind his head with a whisper gentle touch sweeping Virus’s hair to the side.

A caustic scent burns his tear-ducts and floods his already blurred vision behind a wall of water. It’s not like the acidic scorch of bleach that he’s familiar with thanks to the faux-blond; the smell is like a liquefied pot of Trip’s sweetest candies. It’s a nauseating saccharine death and the pungent stench only grows stronger. His airways are filled with the gag-worthy sweetness as a cloth smothers any chance at breathing new, fresh air. Trip scoops the tense body into himself and suddenly history lapses over itself. The armoured wall of solid chest encases Virus as their eyes are filled only by each other. Tears spill over, bitter with frustration and pent up anger and confusion and _he’s so heavy_ , his eyes burn so bad but sleep feels so permanent. In the end, he’s already blurred the lines of consciousness and Trip’s triumphant grin looming over him is both a mirage and reality. That mischievous quirk drags him into his drugged dreams and the last light to hit Virus’s retinas is a distorted wave of stripped yellow and neon blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sO there ya go my horny nuggets i wanted to add more rapey weird shit but thatll come later i guess 
> 
> im thinking next chapter will also be short (soRRY) buT in Trips POV (not 1st person bc i cant write 1st damn) 
> 
> i fuckin love trip oh my fucklord of gay memes i want to shove him in my ass with the liON with THE ENTIRE CAST OF SANIC hes such a gross mess of sugar flavoured titty juice and melted cum like hes double fucked he sees ppl as fkin mUD thats some kind of fu ked uP pussyfart 
> 
> so yeA YALL BETTER HAVE LIKED THE crEEpY rapey the rapper bullshit riP me


	4. CHCl3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooPS another short chapter what fuckin ever im laZy 
> 
> If you want more info or suggestions comment on here or message me @pastel_demon on instagram and spaghetti-queef on tumblr (ikr classy af) 
> 
> yall get some sexy times between the 2 dumpsters yeeeeee

Popping pills or shooting up, sculling down, and being suffocated by chloroform are all entirely different experiences. Virus may only recreationally fiddle with some substances nowadays but his early life adventures are branded in his memories. Inequitable romances with ecstasy and heroin can be summoned if he concentrates hard enough. The smell, taste, feeling and overall escapade of their high can be pieced together like Frankenstein, brought back to life as a living and breathing creature.

Surprisingly, that had not been the first time he’d been intentionally silenced by a drug. Childhood had him living as a guinea pig. Needles were commonplace, as were drugs that muted him for hours or days. That’s why he doesn’t need to second guess that Trip had knocked him out with chloroform. There are so many other drugs that mimic chloroform, but that brawny idiot has favouritism for the sickeningly sweet fumes.

“Was that necessary?” he greets Trip in the kitchen. The response isn’t even a sentence, or a word or two; Trip just stares with empty eyes, a thin, superficial shell of humanity. His head revoltingly mocks a sluggish tilt. It’s executed like a machine; his head weighs down on the right and stops abruptly, an aftershock bouncing his final position.

Cohesive flow of conversation is non-existent within his cognitive functions. “You look gross… and burnt.” the statement is followed by long moments of his sunken eyes tracing each of the angry red patterns covering Virus’s body. A choked snort mixes signals with a drawn out sigh, his drooped lids falling jadedly.  Then he leaves with a few lethargic strides.

Virus closes his eyes tightly and rests his fingers on his throbbing temples. In what little distraction he can find, he laps his tongue around his pearly whites. They then catch the pink muscle and scrape down until the deluging saliva becomes tangy, like water rotting the insides of a metal barrel.

Bunched up fabric smacks his bare chest with a soft thump, he barely has the energy to catch it. Trip had also wandered in with them, unfortunately. Virus unfolds the scrunched cloth to reveal its true purpose as pyjama pants. The burly blond laughs deeply as Virus pieces together his situation. His eyes trail downwards and find that his skin, burnt and raw, trails down past his naked chest. There’s nothing covering his body, leaving him vulnerable to the wilderness of their kitchen terrain.

“Putting on a show this early?” Trip’s baritone voice mocks coyly.

Sliding on the pants with ease, Virus participates in the banter. “You know me, I do love to perform.” During the process of dressing himself, he kept his eyes glued to the drawstrings on the waistband. When he does lift his head, he raises a delicate brow and Trip does the same.

“There a problem?”

Virus poises a finger to his hips drowning in the folds of fabric. “These are yours.” It’s true, anyone could point out the way the waistband is a slip away from dropping straight to the kitchen tiles. The strings are fastened so tightly that there’s more untied string hanging from the holes than rope that actually wraps around his jutting hipbones.

The taller man offers a consolation shrug. It only snaps Virus’s strings of patience, so with a new vigour he strides away. Bedroom or lounge room he couldn’t care if he stumbled down a rabbit hole, so long as it took him as far as possible from his troubles and a chunk of issues start with the beast in his kitchen. The few steps he takes feel like a long journey. It’s realistically only a couple before his anger-fuelled monologue stutters as he comes to acknowledge the chafing between his thighs.

Now he understands.                                       

Stubborn, he continues to his room. A muffled offer for help is swatted away like the pest Trip is. Yes he needs help, but assistance is synonymous with capability and fidelity in Virus’s vocabulary, both of which his counterpart has neither of. Trip barely has a vocabulary in the first place, let alone the capacity to understand loyalty.

Virus staggers into the first door he sees. A bed grants him rest and a chance to assess his wounds. As soon as the string slips through its knot the pyjama pants slide down long legs with only a breath. Underneath lies an expanse of furious red, no patches of white skin or even a peachy tenderness; every inch is a shade darker than the last. The pants had irritated it some more… just what he needed.

The burns fade lighter as his eyes travel past his knees to the one part of him left unsinged―the palest part of his body. Of course his feet would make it out unscathed.

His whole body _feels_ hot, all the way to the roots of his hair. The heat pours over him but it’s so deeply ingrained in his body it’s almost as if it’s erupting from his stomach and scampering up his neck to burn his brain. He’s so crammed with rage and loathing he groans in a poor attempt of relieving some tension. It only creates more, but not in the way he first expected. Trip is undeniably some type of forest mutant, the frustrated cry drawing him to Virus. There he is again, just standing there and staring like he’s a glitch that shouldn’t be there. A malfunctioning robot in Virus’s room, not supposed to be here with that carved expression almost visualising the indistinguishable sensations swirling thickly inside Virus.

He tightens his fists to quell the need to rip his heated flesh from his body, tear into his stomach and unravel his intestines and manually smooth out the tightly coiled knots. At this moment his eyes glare determined in doing just that. He would be at this very second, but Trip’s here, fucking up his plans by existing.

Virus has to filter his anxiety through dissonant gasps, panting through the slits in his teeth like a rancid animal during mating season. Their eyes lock, but Virus can’t see shit, which means he can’t see if Trip has an equal amount of murderous bloodlust fogging over his eyes as Virus does.

“What the fuck ― are you doing here?”

“This is my room, you know.” It’s a statement that should be sarcastic, it _should_ have an undertone of spite and it would have if Virus were the one spitting it. It should comfort him that it is merely that: a statement. However, all that ensues is the twisting of his previous findings into an amorphous, meaningless jumble too similar to that of the emotions gurgling in his stomach. 

Trip’s void stare calmly traces over him, inching closer and closer with each stride. Virus glares back and he wishes he could taper his rage but it’s overtly strewn across his features, eating his patience away.  When the monster in cotton pyjamas takes a vacancy on the bed the whole world pirouettes for Virus. The world seems too joyful for all these perilous situations he’s forced into frequently. _Was Trip always this scary, or is he only noticing it now because of the vulnerability he’s exuding? Has Trip always strayed too close to his personal space?_ Virus’s head whirls with these questions that he’s seeking to uncover but doing so with a hand over his eyes, peeking through the gaps of his quivering fingers.

His mind pounds in a pattern: _Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look._

“Virus…”

That scent of savage sweat, a putrid, testosterone fueled odor that gets more and more pungent but more and more intriguing. He wants to bury his face in it but he knows if he did that he may very well vomit and pass out. He might do those things even without that trigger, just as he sits on Trip’s bed right now with the man in his presence.

The breath they share becomes thick and heavy, but that may be only on Virus’s part. It’s like breathing in syrup. Then, a brutish hand that belongs more to an animal than a human traces the raw, tender red of his burnt skin, up his thighs and down again, his jutting hip bones and further still. The skin beneath ripples and each touch is agony, it’s his skin slicing open as a thick finger runs along it but then it courses up his _spine_ and Virus bites his tongue to suppress a squeal. His toes curl enough to dig into the balls of his feet; his legs snap open to fit this disgusting animal between them, but even then he underestimates how wide Trip is as he pushes them apart further, molding himself into Virus.

Teeth scrape along the artery thumping against the skin of his neck and eventually sink in and _oh does he **scream**._ A hand grips the back of his neck in place, pinching it like it’s nothing. He could flinch and find himself three blinks from death.  It moves, leaving behind a longing that is soon fulfilled by the harsh rip of his scalp. Blond twined in Trip’s fingers, the rhythmic ‘twang’ of hairs popping from the root, ripping from the scalp and tearing from between. That one hand covers Virus’s whole skull; almost the entirety of his hair tangled and bunched under Trip’s command.

“I want…” Trip’s clinical eyes drag up from the blood steadily beading around fresh bruises “I want…” hot air flares his nostrils as he gasps out “…to _break_ you.”

Virus finally looks.

His eyebrows arch towards his strained hairline. Rounded eyes scurry back and forth between those dead eyes of Trip’s, left to right, blink, repeat. A disproportionate inhale, shuddering weakly on Trip’s neck before he breathes into the shell of his ear: “you’re disgusting.”

A strained cackle is all that slips through his venomous tongue; the rest is stolen by Trip’s mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AGAin i am SORRY 
> 
> i am just a man who fkin sucks at balancing life 
> 
> idk if you guys are okay with short chapter more often or longer chapters less often
> 
> IDK MAN 
> 
> reviews give me life so pls i have none (apart from the daily life of a meme farmer) 
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING THIS SO FAR IDk HOW MUCH IMMA WRiTE OF THIS

**Author's Note:**

> yo if you enjoyed it tell me what you think or leave a kudos if you liked my shit bc I appreciate it 
> 
> yeah its weird and fucked up but that's trip and virus for you tell me if you think I captured them well or not
> 
> ALSO this will probs only be like a few chapters and if ur thirsty for these two dorks to fuck lemme know bc i'll keep it tame if u want but if u want smut everywhere then that can be arranged 
> 
> sooo yeah comment if you have any suggestions because my brain is FRIED AFFFF


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